21 February 2024 (Lloyd's List) - CARRIERS have benefited from the delivery of 17 vessels of more than 13,000 teu since the beginning of the year, as they seek to provide tonnage to address Red Sea rerouting challenges.
Taking the longer route around the Cape of Good Hope has required carriers deploy at least two additional vessels to loops in order to maintain weekly schedules.
But the crisis has coincided with a period of increasing deliveries of vessels ordered during the boom years of the pandemic, which has made finding the additional tonnage an easier task.
Analysis of deliveries by Alphaliner shows that 2M alliance partners Maersk and Mediterranean Shipping Co benefited the most from a large number of newbuilding deliveries.
“Maersk and MSC managed to increase the fleet of the Asia-northern Europe-Scandinavia AE5/Albatross service to 16 units, which enabled them to offer nine sailings on that service through January and February,” Alphaliner said.
“The addition of the 19,437 teu MSC Ditte (IMO: 9754953) and the 17,816 teu Ebba Maersk (IMO: 9321524) to the fleet of the Asia-northern Europe-Baltic AE10/Silk service allowed 2M to offer nine departures for that loop as well.”
MSC and Maersk were the only carriers to announce a blank sailing programme for the Chinese New Year period, with seven sailings voided to northern Europe and four to the Mediterranean, it added.
“Taking into account the Chinese New Year blank sailings, the 2M partners were able to offer all other sailings as scheduled,” Alphaliner said.
The Alliance also benefited from the earlier closure of services that had freed up capacity.
“The members of The Alliance were able to respond rather swiftly to the Red Sea crisis since they had already suspended the Southeast Asia-northern Europe FE5 loop and the Asia-US east coast EC4 service at the end of November, thus gradually freeing up no fewer than 22 neo-panamax vessels,” Alphaliner said.
The carriers were able to offer seven departures on average for their three loops between China and northern Europe after Hapag-Lloyd received the 23,664 teu Busan Express (IMO: 5417258) and Ocean Network Express shifted the two chartered vessels from the Asia-Mediterranean trade to the FE3 and FE4 loops.
The Ocean Alliance, however, had fewer newbuildings and no redeployed capacity available so performed the worst in terms of operating normal schedules, according to Alphaliner.
While Cosco’s delivery of the 24,188 teu OOCL Valencia (IMO: 9922598) helped it achieve eight sailings on its Asia-northern Europe LL1/AEU1 service, its Asia-Europe AUE7 service has only achieved four sailings since January 1.
Alphaliner noted that CMA CGM had been able to compensate partly with ad hoc sailings, and the shortage of tonnage may partially explain the carrier’s decision to continue with Red Sea routings long after other carriers had pulled out of the region.
Ships that were forced to divert have now begun to arrive back in Asia following two extended voyages around the Cape of Good Hope. With demand set to fall back, there is hope that this will allow schedules to settle into place again.
“For carriers, it is a lucky coincidence that the return of the first batch of diverted ships falls in the traditionally slow period after Chinese New Year, when shipping lines tend to blank a number of sailings,” Alphaliner said.
Nevertheless, it warned that despite the increase in capacity required to service the longer routing, carriers still faced an issue with overcapacity.
“Any solution in the short or middle term for the Red Sea conflict, would immediately result in many ships becoming redundant,” it said.
“While some carriers are still looking for extra tonnage to fully staff Cape routed services, the amount of new capacity to be delivered in 2024 and 2025 will exceed these needs.”
Alphaliner calculates and additional 1.2m teu of capacity — some of it already deployed — is required to provide the three additional vessels required to maintain services on the longer route, but this is far exceeded by the 1.9m teu of neo-panamax and larger vessels to be delivered this year and a further 1.4m teu due in 2025.
